Posts Tagged with "history"

In ancient Greece, (469 – 399 BC), Socrates was reputed to hold knowledge in high esteem.

One day an acquaintance met the great philosopher and said, “Do you know what I just heard about your friend, Diogenes?”

“Hold on a minute,” Socrates replied. “Before telling me anything, I’d like you to pass a little test. It’s called the Triple Filter Test. Before you talk to me about my friend, it might be a good idea to take a moment and filter what you’re going to say. That’s why I call it the triple filter test. The first filter is TRUTH. Have you made absolutely sure that what you are about to tell me is true?”

“No,” the man said, “actually I just heard about it and…”

“All right,” said Socrates. “So you don’t really know if it’s true or not. Now let’s try the second filter, the filter of GOODNESS. Is what you are about to tell me about my friend something good?”

“No, on the contrary…”

“So,” Socrates continued, “you want to tell me something bad about him, but you’re not certain it’s true. You may still pass the test though, because there’s one filter left: the filter of USEFULNESS. Is what you want to tell me about my friend going to be useful to me?”

“No, not really.”

“Well,” concluded Socrates, “if what you want to tell me is neither true nor good nor even useful, why tell it to me at all?”

This is why Socrates was a great philosopher and held in such high esteem. It also explains why Socrates never found out that Diogenes was banging his wife.

Oliver Cromwell is undoubtedly one of the most infamous characters in the history of the British Isles. None will deny that the man was only just short of if the very definition of genocidal, having killed nearly 300,000 people in Scotland and Ireland, with nearly double that amount dying after the wars and massacres due to illness and starvation. And despite those figures, depending who you ask, the man could be a revered hero, a feared dictator or even a reviled traitor.

That makes this image a perfect illustration of the remarkably fine line between funny and clever. Context is key, right?